Words of a Bibliophile

I first heard about this book when I read Jane Eyre about 10 years ago and only got around to reading it now. Many people seem to enjoy it including some of my friends, but I found it to be a little less than engaging and not much of a page-turner. Ironic, since there's a minor character actually named Paige Turner in it.

I couldn't decide what the tone of the story is supposed to be. It keeps flip-flopping between the light and humorous (witty puns and names like the one mentioned above, literary trivia, random funny stuff from cloned dodos as pets to quirky secret societies) and the serious (veterans of an ongoing war, murdered innocents, an all-powerful corporation which has the English government in its pocket). I liked the Jane Eyre parts, but I'm sure I missed a lot of the other literary and historical/political references.

Thursday is a fierce lady but somehow I was more interested to learn further about the diabolical, mind-bending, bulletproof villain Acheron Hades and how he got his powers. One plot hole that bugged me was that things can happen in the background of the novel Jane Eyre that don't affect the story line as long as Jane doesn't know about them, because the novel is written in her first person point of view. But Thursday is also the first person narrator of this book and there are chapters seen through other people's points of view which she can't possibly know about. Overall I give this 2.5 stars, which I might round up or down later depending on how generous I feel.